


Murphy's Law

by indraaas



Category: Naruto
Genre: Crack, F/M, mild au elements explained in authors note, non mass au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:40:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29113911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indraaas/pseuds/indraaas
Summary: No, Sakura’s only indication that her day’s off to a bad start is that the blood on the walls spells out: WE HAVE THE UCHEEHA MEET ARE DEMANDS BY MIDNI (crossed out) MID NIG (crossed out) 12 AT NIGHT OR HE DIESGiven that Sasuke sleeps in until noon on non-training days and the Uchiha district doesn’t appear to be burning to the ground courtesy of Itachi’s Amaterasu, Sakura can only conclude that somebody was stupid enough to kidnap Neji on his way to the tea house across the road and that he was stupid enough to get caught.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Hyuuga Neji
Comments: 4
Kudos: 37





	Murphy's Law

**Author's Note:**

> THIS IS FOR MOMO FOR THE SAKURA SERVER'S GIFT EXCHANGE I LOVE U BITCH I AIN'T EVER GONNA STOP LOVING YOU BITCH
> 
> A brief explanation before you all begin to read: this is set in an au I have that splinters off (sequel's off?) a Mikoto centric fic idea, but basically all you need to know is that Mikoto adopts Neji after Hizashi dies, Itachi's brother complex is worse than ever, and Team 7 now consists of Kakashi, Sakura, Sasuke, and Neji. 
> 
> That being said, go forth.

Neji’s first clue that his day is going horribly, terribly wrong isn’t that he’s been kidnapped - in an alley with chloroform like he’s some sort of TV heroine - and tied up perilously close to what he’s starting to think is fossilized cow dung. It’s not even that the kidnappers have drugged him with chakra suppressants outlawed after the last war.

It’s that they’re fourteen and currently squabbling over whether or not they should include a lifetime supply of Ichiraku ramen to their list of ransom demands.

“Hey, Uchiha-”

“ _Hyuuga_ ,” Neji bites out.

The one guy with a mohawk blinks. “Wait, yer _not_ an Uchiha?”

If he could move his arms he would point to his pupiless eyes and ask them if their parents had used them as bowling balls as children. Because his arms are currently twisted behind his back and tied together with some bastardization of a lariat loop _and_ lark’s head, he settles for blinking furiously to draw their attention to said eyes. 

“You got dry eyes or som’in? I can get eye drops-” Mohawk smacks his bald companion. “Don’ be stupid! He’s our hostage, the worse conditions we keep ‘im in, the faster our ransom’s met! Plus if he’s a Hyuuga ‘is team’s pro’lly lookin’ for ‘im right now!”

“What time is it?” Neji interjects, having given up on trying to undo the knots around his wrists. 

“Uh, like, noon?”

He sighs, shifting to make himself more comfortable against the wood pillar he’s propped on. Knowing his team, they’re not getting up for another three hours and they won’t even notice he’s gone for six hours after _that_ if the Spa Incident of ‘16 is any proof.

* * *

Sakura’s first clue that her day is going horribly, terribly wrong isn’t that she wakes up to blood on her walls. She’s a medic-nin and a member of Team Seven - waking up to bodily fluids (or solid parts, she doesn’t discriminate) smeared on any number of surfaces is par for the course and has, in a twisted way, become her Thing. Some friends buy each other flowers as a welcome home gift. Sasuke or Neji will bring her their dismembered fingers neatly wrapped in a bag full of ice so she can reattach them on the kitchen counter.

They’re getting better about it. Some days they even timestamp the bags. 

No, Sakura’s only indication that her day’s off to a bad start is that the blood on the walls spells out: _WE HAVE THE UCHEEHA MEET ARE DEMANDS BY MIDNI_ (crossed out) _MID NIG_ (crossed out) _12 AT NIGHT OR HE DIES_

Given that Sasuke sleeps in until noon on non-training days and the Uchiha district doesn’t appear to be burning to the ground courtesy of Itachi’s Amaterasu, Sakura can only conclude that somebody was stupid enough to kidnap Neji on his way to the tea house across the road and that he was stupid enough to get caught.

“I should probably go tell someone, huh?” she muses aloud, running a hand through her hair, wrinkling her nose when it catches on a glob of... _something_ caught in the pink strands. This is what she gets for not showering after the recon mission-turned-beatdown last night. 

“Ah, fuck it, he can handle himself for a bit…”

Once she’s showered, shaved, _and_ exfoliated so thoroughly her skin is a fetching shade of ‘first-degree-burn’, Sakura slips into her uniform, strapping a battle-axe to her back as an afterthought, and skips out the front door towards the Uchiha District to let Mikoto know somebody’s kidnapped her adopted son and _maybe_ they should send out a search party. Then again, it is - she checks one of the clocks on display at the convenience store - almost a quarter after twelve so Neji’s probably found his way back home and chowing down on a late lunch.

“Hey, Sakura,” Genma greets her as he passes by. “Heading over to Mikoto-san’s?”

“Yup! Somebody kidnapped Neji, thought I’d let her know.”

“Ah, cool, tell Obito and Oruka I say hi if you see them.”

“Will do!”

(It won’t be until Genma’s halfway through his first coffee of his day that it hits him that _Hyuuga fuckin’ Neji’s_ been kidnapped, to which he finishes his drink, makes two more cups, and heads up the Hokage tower to let Minato know they should _probably_ sound the alarms or something.)

Sakura bursts into the Main House with far more cheer than a Tuesday afternoon warrants. “Good morning!”

“Good morning, Sakura,” Mikoto says from where she’s boiling water for tea. “Would you like to join us for lunch? I made sukiyaki.”

“That sounds wonderful, thank you.” Sakura takes a seat next to a half-asleep Sasuke, brushing his bangs aside so they stop dripping into his bowl of miso soup. She gives up when they flop back in, stubbornly determined to be as seasoned as the tofu bits floating around. 

“Father should be joining us shortly,” Itachi tells her in lieu of hello. 

“And Neji?”

“I haven’t seen him since he left this morning.”

“Oh, that’s…” her brow furrows, a pang of worry burrowing deep in her chest before she quickly smothers it. This is _Neji_ they’re talking about, one of the Four Legendary Freaky Eyes of the village - he’s fine. He _has_ to be fine or else she’s going to go on a killing spree and Tsunade-shishou won’t take too kindly to dealing with that.

“Hm?”

“Well, he was kidnapped this morning, I just thought he’d be back by now.”

The results are instantaneous: the chopsticks in Itachi’s hands shatter just as Fugaku-san enters the living room and exchanges A Look with Mikoto. Sasuke continues to snore.

“Well, well, where have I seen _this_ before,” Fugaku mutters. Mikoto thwaps him with a spoon, pursing her lips.

“How do you know he was kidnapped? Itachi, _sit down_ and stop emitting so much killing intent, there’s a bird’s nest outside and I will not be burying baby birds today.”

Itachi looks deeply torn as he weighs his options: live up to his reputation as God of the Brother Complexes, or risk _Uchiha Mikoto's_ wrath. Ultimately, his mom proves scarier and he settles for tapping his fingers against the table hard enough to crack the wood. 

“I woke up to blood on my walls - _not human_ , cow - and it said that we had until midnight to meet their ransom demands or ‘the Uchiha’ would be in trouble,” Sakura says, “I didn’t actually find a ransom list anywhere. I don’t suppose any of you…?”

Itachi disappears in a flash. The only indication he’s even in the house is the occasional crash indicating something’s been toppled over in his quest for the ransom note. Fugaku takes his seat at the head of the table and snaps open the newspaper, unbothered by the whole situation. Sakura supposes it’s one of those Things that happens when you have three sons who’ve been crafted into murder machines from their diaper days. Plus, you know, Uchiha. She imagines there are protocols.

She busies herself with reading the headline. Minato-sama finally passed the tax bracket modification which means the Elders are losing their tops right about now, just as planned.

Itachi appears by her side, eyes tight with worry but face otherwise blank. “Nothing.”

“Yo!” Shisui _shunshin’s_ in behind Mikoto, hugging her briefly as he addresses the table. “Did Sasu - oh, no he’s here. Neji got kidnapped I take it? Somebody used a slingshot and shattered my kitchen window to give me the ransom note.”

Sasuke decides to jerk awake at that moment, blinking pieces of nori out of his eyes. “Whazzat?”

* * *

This is torture. There’s no other word for it. Nothing that quite encapsulates the dread, the exhaustion, the way he’s considered three ways to unalive himself using the rusty nail on the post next to him, like torture.

“You delivered the note, right?” Mohawk asks. Baldy nods, dropping to a squat and bouncing on the balls of his feet. 

“Yup. Shot it inta’ th’ Uchiha house!”

Mohawk slaps him upside the head. “He said he was Hyuuga!”

“Ya, ‘cept that pink-haired chick was goin’ there so I thought-”

“You saw Sakura?” Neji interrupts them, a spark of hope igniting in him. If Sakura knows he’s gone then all he has to do is keep an ear out for the sound of earthquakes and the smell of hellfire on her heels. Salvation in the form of bone-shattering fists - that’s his Sakura.

Relief is immediately swapped for terror when he realizes he just called her _his Sakura_ and oh fucking _gods_ Genma’s gonna win the bet.

“We left th’ note in ‘er room in cow's blood!” Baldy declares proudly.

“Cow's blood.”

"Yep!"

“You wrote on her walls in cow's blood.”

“I thought she migh’ miss a paper note, so…”

Neji feels sorry for them. Genuinely sorry. Not an ounce of malice anywhere in his veins. Not when Sakura’s going to rip out their livers, bleach them bloodless, and force them to clean the blood off her walls with them. 

* * *

“I’ve decided the recon team will consist of Sakura _alone_ ,” Minato says decisively, pinning Itachi with a glare that could boil blood dry if it was a half degree hotter. Itachi’s eye twitches. 

“If you decided it was gonna be Sakura solo-ing this, why are the rest of us here?” Obito complains, yelping when Oruka _and_ Shisui pinch his neck.

“Because I find it particularly alarming that the highest ranking members of our Military Police Force, half of you being ANBU, weren’t able to detect when one of our own was _kidnapped_ ,” Minato stresses, toying with one of his _hiraishin kunai_ in a way that screams ‘danger’ to anyone with a lick of self-awareness. Obito, realizing not even his Kamui is enough to keep him safe from his sensei’s ire, shuts up.

“We will be doing a very thorough overview of what went wrong when Sakura retrieves Neji,” Fugaku grits out. Sympathy wells in Sakura - she knows all-too-well what it’s like being on the receiving end of Tsunade-shisou’s ire at the hospital in front of god and everyone, she can only imagine getting reamed out by the Hokage in front of your closest family members is enough to drive anyone to drink. Especially when said family members have about as much respect for your authority as a bird does for a worm.

“Until then, I’d like for everyone to account for their whereabouts so I can figure out who to start with. Sakura, you’re dismissed.”

Sakura pats Sasuke on the shoulder on her way out. Her teammate looks half-ready to renounce his citizenship and go rogue just to avoid the impending interrogation. Ever attuned to his thoughts, Itachi clamps down on his elbow and locks him in place.

“Bring him back in one piece, Sakura-san,” Itachi tells her, the softest undercurrent of a threat lacing his words. 

She rolls her eyes and pats him on the shoulder, too. “I’m bringing him back balding just for that.”

* * *

“If you touch my hair I swear upon my honour and integrity as a shinobi of Konoha, I will drown you in the nearest river I can locate,” Neji promises Baldy, flinty eyed. 

“‘M jus’ sayin’, man, you gotta lotta hair. You can afford t' donate a lil'..."

Not for the first time since he awoke, Neji prays Sakura could move just a _little bit faster_ and save him from this hell. Itachi, Shisui, _and_ Obito have used him and Sasuke as dummies to test Tsukiyomi on, amongst other, more inventive Sharingan techniques, and even _those_ are like a nice dip in the onsen compared to whatever the _fuck_ is going on here.

"I mean, he's tied down, 's'not like he could stop us if we _did_ …"

"I can. I _will_."

Baldy pins his friend - brother? - with a flat look. "He said no, I gotta respec' his bodily autonomy 'n' stuff. Remember tha' episode o' Judge Jin with the fuckin' dude who got sued 'cause he clipped his cousins nails 'gainst his will? This guy could sue us."

"You _kidnapped me_ and you're worried about a civil lawsuit I could bring against you?" Neji asks incredulously. 

"Well, yeah. Lawyers are better at sniffin' people out than the Inuzuka are. 'm not gonna risk gettin' tossed into jail when I could just steal a wig or somethin'."

* * *

Tracking's never been Sakura's strong suit. Luckily, either these kidnappers are bad enough that they didn't bother hiding their trail or those lessons with Kakashi have finally paid off (or some combination of the above) and she's able to follow the lead from her bedroom to one of the dilapidated farms out at the very edges of the village. Sakura remembers it as being the same one that a lot of Academy students, including herself, used to dare each other to hole up in overnight on account of it being (supposedly) haunted.

Either that or it's the one the jounin use to get high as balls in whenever there's a new recruit.

She whiffs the air delicately when she approaches, wrinkling her nose. Jounin haunt for _sure_.

It doesn't take long to find them. All she has to do is follow the dulcet sounds of Neji belting out one of his infamous lectures around back to the actual farm, where she leans against the doorframe and waits with the patience of somebody who knows from experience not to interrupt.

"-ridiculous that you seem to think that a _lawyer_ will be any more terrifying than the wrath of the Military Police Force!"

"Worst the Force can do is kill us. Lawyers? Throw us in jail, 25 ta life 'cause they gotta meet quotas 'n' shit. You ever been ta jail? I'll pass."

"They do have a point, Neji. You have a village protected doujutsu, they'll be heading for Ibiki's office before anything else," Sakura pipes up. 

"Sakura." Neji looks at her with the reverence of a worshipper meeting their god after a lifetime of searching and it's kinda-sorta-maybe doing things to her insides that are borderline obscene when you combine them with the rush of filthy daydreams involving him kneeling before her wearing nothing but that leather collar of his.

Sakura gives herself whiplash shaking her head to clear the images. She is _not_ getting horny over her teammate, she is _not_ getting horny over her teammate, she is _not_ \- okay maybe she is. Horny. Emotionally. Emotionally horny for him. There's a word for this.

"Which one of you two wrote on my walls in blood and which one drew up the ransom note?"

Mohawk points to Baldy. "He did th' note, I did yer walls - hey!" He squawks when her fist drills into his cranium none-too-gently. Neji's lips quirk up, which, in Nejiism, is the equivalent to sighing dreamily and going all heart-eyes. Sakura flicks Baldy in the forehead, sending him flying into a barrel of hay.

"Nice," Neji says, tantamount to declaring his undying love for her. 

(Okay, so she _might_ be reaching a little here but she's learned to take what she can get all things considered.)

"If you two move I'll have no choice but to break all four ankles and tie them together using your Achilles tendons so you stay still," Sakura warns them, pulling a kunai out of her hip pouch and making quick work of the ropes typing Neji to the post. He rotates his wrists, shooting her a grateful little half smile that does nothing to abate the raging Emotional Horny digging its roots in her mind.

"I was expecting an earlier rescue," he remarks.

"I was expecting _you_ to have broken free by the time I got to your place," she shoots back. "This is why I made chuunin first."

"Yes, your terrible sleep hygiene speaks volumes in regards to how equipped you are for your position."

"Says the guy who got kidnapped by a bunch of kids. Early to bed, early to rise except you're not healthy _or_ wise."

"They used toflazapam. Did you expect me to just sleep that off?"

"How in the hell did they get their hands on-? Never mind. Kakashi-sensei got hit by that during the war and _he_ still managed to escape the Iwa holding cells."

"How is that-"

"Are y'all done flirtin'? I think we got concussions ta worry about," Baldy moans.

"The guy who included a premium membership to the House of Onion Rings on the ransom note is suddenly health conscious?" Sakura raises an eyebrow, planting both fists on her hips.

"Least if I go inta' a food coma 's worth it an' o' my own free will."

"Ichiraku...House of Onion Rings - did your ransom list consist of _just_ food? You kidnapped me for _food_?!"

* * *

Neji is passed between his family members like some kind of twisted teddy bear when they arrive in Minato's office. Byakuya is the only member of the Hyuuga contingent there, present long enough to make sure both of Neji's eyeballs are present and accounted for before he _shunshin_ 's away, probably to let Hiashi know he doesn't need to wage war against the Uchiha for losing his emancipated nephew's precious Byakugan.

"This is them?" Itachi asks frostily, still busy mother-henning Neji to death. Sakura nods, one surly teen tucked under each arm.

"They look kinda familiar…" Obito remarks, tilting his head. "I feel like I've seen them somewhere before."

"They hang around Naruto-kun and Ebi-chan's team a lot," Oruka offers her brother helpfully. 

Obito pales. "Oh. Er, on that note, I think I know how they got past us so easily."

Fugaku pinches the bridge of his nose, glancing heavenward. "Obito, tell me you and Naruto did not lead a mission disguised as hide and go seek to teach Team Ebisu and these two how to bypass security checkpoints."

"I did not lead a mission disguised as hide and go seek to teach them all how to bypass security checkpoints." He pauses. "It was tag."

"Obito the Vanisher, everybody. Saviour of Kannabi Bridge," Minato sighs, "Okay, Shisui and Sasuke, each of you take one of them to T&I and tell Ibiki to let their genin interns interrogate them. Mikoto, if you and Shikaku could figure out how to deal with these gaps in our security. Fugaku, I'll leave Obito's discipline to you. On that note, Oruka, if you could do me a favour and drag my idiot son here. Everybody else, dismissed."

Sakura doesn't hesitate for a second, slipping out the door behind Neji as they all make their way back to the compound. 

"I will return home shortly. I have something to discuss with members of the Police Force. Sakura, if you could warm up some leftovers for Neji it would be appreciated," Itachi says with a brief nod to her and a poke to the forehead to him, disappearing with a soft _whoosh_.

"He's gonna kill everybody who was on duty today, isn't he?" Sakura remarks.

"Of that I have no doubt."

She peeks at him out of the corner of her eye, taking in his gaunt, exasperated features. Mohawk and Baldy, for all their harmless if not asinine plans, probably didn't feed him anything and it's nearing four in the afternoon. Reheated sukiyaki sounds about as appetizing as deep fried eggplant right about now. 

Boldly, Sakura links arms with him and marches out of the Tower, forcing herself to stay completely, totally, 100% nonchalant about this. They're teammates. Teammates who've seen each other at their best and worst, bundled to the nines and virtually naked and covered in all sorts of filth. Teammates touch each other all the time. This is normal. This is fine.

 _Teammates don't normally wanna fuck each other blind_ , Inner singsongs.

 _Shut the fuck up_.

"Sakura? The compound is-"

"You missed your morning tea. I know you get cranky if you don't have your daily green, so I thought we'd get some. Your treat because I rescued you!"

Neji draws his arm closer to himself, dragging her into his side. "I suppose that's an acceptable compromise."

(Sakura's first clue that today is going actually kinda decent isn't that he's agreed to go on a not-date with her. It's not even that he pays for them both. It's that Genma passes them by, takes one look at them sharing a stick of dango, _immediately_ declares that he's winning the bet, and Neji.

Neji smiles.)

**Author's Note:**

> Toflazapam is not a real drug, I just borrowed the 'am' suffix and keysmashed until something sounded drug-like. 
> 
> Neji might come off as serious but this guy is a walking MEME as far as canon goes, he's hilarious and a comedic genius.
> 
> (I've also never written NejiSaku before hence why I'm so ??? about this fic hwhxjejjcdj) 
> 
> Please r&r thank uuuuuuu


End file.
